Increasing Interest in Computer Science through Group Work: A Goal Congruity Approach

Abstract

Women’s underrepresentation in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields is well established; however, there is much variation in women’s among STEM fields. Women received 60% of bachelor’s degrees in biology but only 18% of computer science degrees in 2009. One explanation for this difference may be social stereotypes of the fields. Male-dominated STEM fields are stereotyped as asocial, which may lead women to think that these fields will not give them opportunities to work with and help others. Three studies examined how communal goals, goals related to creating and maintaining interpersonal relationships, relate to interest in STEM fields. Study 1 (N = 120) found that women were more likely than men to endorse communal goals. Additionally, women were more interested in STEM classes they thought would fulfill their communal goals. Participants’ communal goal endorsement was negatively correlated with their interest in male-dominated STEM fields, like computer science. Study 2 (N = 296) examined group work as a potential factor that could affect perceptions of communal fulfillment in science classes. Classes with group work were perceived to be higher in communal goal fulfillment. Male-dominated STEM fields were perceived to have less group work than female-dominated STEM fields. Additionally, preference for group work was positively correlated with communal goals. Study 3 (N = 91) experimentally manipulated the collaboration policy of a computer science class syllabus, testing for changes in communal goal fulfillment and interest. The class with a pro-collaboration policy was perceived as having the most communal goal fulfillment, but these perceptions did not carry over to perceptions of the field of computer science as a whole. These studies suggest that increasing opportunities for communal experiences in computer science may help women to feel that computer science would fulfill their goals, increasing their interest in the field.

Unpacking motivational culture: Diverging emphasis on communality and agency across STEM domains.

“…Goal opportunities in an environment might be afforded through both literal and figurative structures. For example, the placement of furniture in classrooms provides or precludes opportunities for collaboration (Cheryan et al, 2014), and STEM courses that included group work were perceived higher in communal goal affordances (Montoya et al, 2020). Prior experimental work has found that students use such information to discern their likely goal opportunities: For example, an engineering course description that included service learning led to greater expectations of communal opportunities in the course, relative to a control description (Belanger et al, 2017).…”

Unpacking Motivational Culture: Diverging Emphasis on Communality and Agency Across STEM Domains

“…Goal opportunities in an environment might be afforded through both literal and figurative structures. For example, the placement of furniture in classrooms provides or prevents opportunities for collaboration (Cheryan et al, 2014), and STEM courses that included group work were perceived higher in communal goal affordances (Montoya et al, 2020). Prior experimental work has found that students use such information to discern their likely goal opportunities: For example, an engineering course description that included service learning led to greater expectations of communal opportunities in the course, relative to a control description (Belanger et al, 2017).…”

Conditional Process Analysis in Two-Instance Repeated-Measures Designs

“…If there are order effects the following procedures will help researchers identify that they exist. The data for this example come from Montoya, Master, and Cheryan (2013). In this study, the researchers investigated if group work in computer science classes might increase women's interest in computer science by increasing their perception that computer science is a communal field.…”